


He Has Hope

by SingingTheThunder



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Canon-Typical Threat, Families of Choice, Found Family, Gen, Probable Canon Divergence, Season/Series 05 Spoilers, Written Pre-Episode 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 12:57:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15365187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingTheThunder/pseuds/SingingTheThunder
Summary: Hope is born.Diyoza doesn't survive and Kane stays behind to buy time, so John Murphy runs with her alone.He's not his father. He's not her father, either.





	He Has Hope

Hope is born.

 

Diyoza doesn’t survive and Kane stays behind to buy time, so Murphy runs with her alone. She’s tiny, but so so loud. The tracking collar was less likely to get him caught. He doesn’t know what McCreary wants with Hope. He doesn’t much care. He just knows he’s not giving her to him.

There’s miles of woodland and it feels impossible to hide a baby in it. How Bellamy managed in a single room is a mystery. He sacrifices his shirt to make her a sling, with his hands free he can climb, hiding above the hunters’ heads on a branch that threatens to snap with every breath, pleading silently with Hope to stay quiet. At least Clarke’s was old enough to understand _shut up_.

Keeping her warm and clean and fed is as difficult. He’s forced back to the village, stealing a blanket and a bottle. He never knows if anyone missed them.

There’s no milk, so he fills the bottle with water and a mashed portion of whatever he can find. It can’t be good for her, but she lives. Hope’s a survivor, like him.

“I should give you to McCreary,” he tells her, when she vomits on their only blanket and the wind almost takes it while it dries. “Trade you for protection. For a bed. For a warm meal.”

He doesn’t.

Hope grips his little finger for the first time. Her hand doesn’t fit all the way round.

“You’re strong,” he tells her, “Going to beat Auntie Harper at arm wrestling one day. Course then Uncle Monty will disown you for messing up his betting scam, so maybe wait a while.”

They shelter in the dropship the night of a storm. It sounds like gunfire.

“You have a sister,” he tells her, “Madi. I only met her briefly. She said I wasn’t funny. You think she’s wrong, right?”

Hope flips herself over for the first time. Finds herself stuck face down in the mud and howls.

“You need to learn to look before you jump in,” he tells her, “Auntie Clarke still hasn’t figured that one out though … nor has Auntie Octavia or Uncle Bellamy or … well, maybe we’ll do better at teaching you to.”

The blanket tears, caught on a thorn. He replaces her sling with half and continues to use the other.

“Uncle Bellamy could have fixed this,” he tells her, “He’ll teach you how if you let him. That and a million stories about dead people who don’t matter any more. He’ll teach you those even if you don’t let him.”

Hope starts reaching for him to indicate she wants to be picked up. She always seems to want to be picked up.

“There’s a woman, Emori,” he tells her, “I don’t think she wants to be a mummy. She’ll have to be Auntie Emori. When I was a child there seemed to be nothing but orphans, now there’s so many parents we have to fight over who gets the children. Lucky you, they can’t all disappoint you.”

Hope falls asleep holding his little finger. He’s stuck there until she lets go as effectively as a bear trap.

“That won’t work on Auntie Echo,” he tells her, “Only things she finds cute have a blade or terrible facial hair. Maybe she’ll think I’m cute now, since I haven’t been able to shave and all.”

Hope almost falls in the fire, attempting to grab hold of the pretty shiny lights. He scoops her out of the way, heart hammering and ready to run.

“When you’re older, I’ll teach you to cook,” he tells her. “Until then, fire is off limits. And Auntie Raven is absolutely not allowed to teach you to blow things up. Ever.”

He gets injured, a bullet grazing his cheek. Later he realizes he’s dripped blood over her.

“Auntie Clarke made a deal with your mother,” he tells her, “To make it so there wasn’t a war. They made it to protect you and Madi. That’s how I know Clarke is going to love you. Learnt the hard way that you want Clarke on your side. She looks after her people.”

There’s a lean few days, a time when there’s nothing but water in Hope’s bottle. She pushes it away.

“Uncle Monty’s going to make everywhere like this,” he tells her. “All green. He doesn’t want anyone to be hungry again. Last time he tried to do that he put me in a coma for a week. He’d better not mess it up this time.”

They visit the place Kane and Diyoza had planned for a settlement. He lies on his back in the grass with Hope on his chest.

“I came from the sky,” he tells her. “So did you. You’re lucky you didn’t have to stay up there. All your aunts and uncles have had to. None of us will put you in a cage. We’ll show you how to open the floor on your own. The sky will look limitless to you. I promise.”

Hope gets sick and he’s sure she’s dying, that he should return to the village and hand her over to McCreary so Abby can save her. He’s halfway back when she recovers.

“My father stole medicine when I was sick,” he tells her. “It was the wrong kind. I got better on my own. Auntie Clarke will always know what kind you need. We just have to get back to her.”

 

It ends.

They find their way back to Murphy’s family.

They stop a war.

Murphy stands between three armies with a baby in his arms and asks who wants to kill him first. Who wants the other two armies to band together against them for it.

“What idiot?” Clarke asks, not recognizing him at a distance, with a beard, as a hero.

“Our idiot,” Raven replies, fierce and happy.

Then it’s all tears and he has to extract himself from hugs by telling them not to crush the baby. Then all the focus is on Hope and Murphy can breathe again.

He passes her to Monty. “You know how to grow things, right?” Murphy jokes.

Hope cries. Her sling was warm and soft and the closest thing to safety she’s known since the womb. Not that that was particularly safe either. Monty does his best, rocking her gently, but apparently that’s not close enough to quiet her.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Murphy says. “You need more of a side to side movement.” He doesn’t offer to demonstrate.

Bellamy steps in and takes Hope. He learned to calm a baby as a child himself. With much higher stakes for failure. Hope settles, sucking on one of her fingers.

It makes Murphy angry and then ashamed for being angry and then angry for being ashamed. Of course it’s Bellamy who calms her within seconds of meeting her, unlike Murphy who had to take the time to build her trust. Of course it’s Bellamy that’s looking down at her like he’s been given the most precious gift possible, unlike Murphy who scowls and grumbles and resents her. Of course it’s Bellamy that Hope is going to grow up calling dad.

He’s the better choice.

Unlike Murphy.

Then Bellamy gives her back.

Puts Hope in Murphy’s arms and acts as though that’s where she belongs. Murphy’s anger is replaced with terror. He’s been running with her in his arms for weeks and only now does she seem fragile. Breakable.

Bellamy guides Murphy’s arms into a better hold and Murphy pulls away. “I know what I’m doing,” he tells him. It’s a lie, but he knows what Bellamy is doing.

He doesn’t know what to do with the trust. That quiet certainty in Bellamy’s eyes that Murphy can be like his father, not his mother. It’s too much. He’d run, but Hope is just dozing off, yawning and eyes drifting shut. Running would disturb her.

 

Hope looks too peaceful for that.


End file.
